U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is playing an arrogant game of hide-and-seek with Colorado voters as he seeks to abandon his Senate seat to become governor.

Bennet insists that if he is elected governor in November, he will wait until he is inaugurated in January 2027 before he resigns from the Senate so he can unilaterally appoint his successor to serve out the final two years of his third term.

Bennet became the “accidental senator” by this same exclusionary process when U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar resigned to become President Barack Obama’s Secretary of the Interior in 2009. Gov. Bill Ritter passed over Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff and other prominent Democrats to select Bennet who was serving as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

Before working for DPS, Bennet became a wealthy man working for a respected Colorado corporation which is very ironic because he now assails corporations as the root of all economic evil. Bennet misrepresents, no he is downright untruthful, about how he does not accept corporate money in his campaign.

A Super PAC that Bennet controls called “Rocky Mountain Way” accepts corporate money to support his campaign. Make no mistake about it, “Rocky Mountain Way” exists for no other reason than to spend money to help Bennet.

“Rocky Mountain Way” raised $3.6 million in 2025 including $750,000 from the ultimate corporate mogul, billionaire Michael Bloomberg of New York City. You read that correctly: billionaire corporatist Bloomberg gave Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars to Bennet.

No wonder Bennet arrogantly thinks he owes nothing to Colorado voters.  If he cannot tell the truth about corporate money in his campaign, why would anyone think he would give up the unilateral power to secretly decide who a new senator should be if he is elected governor?

Bennet will inevitably say he will seek the opinions of many Colorado leaders before he single-handedly selects a senator. Big deal.

There are more than 4 million active registered voters and not one of them, other than a handful of Bennet loyalists, would have any real voice in who would be forced upon them as the next senator.

Bennet has a moral obligation to tell the voters of Colorado who he would appoint so that they can factor that appointment into their decision during the election, not after it is held.

And he should announce this not only before the general election in November but also before the June 30 Democratic primary where he is being challenged by Attorney General Phil Weiser. More than one million Democrats deserve to know before they potentially vote in a primary.

More than two million unaffiliated voters and more than 900,000 Republicans deserve to know before the November general election who Bennet would force them to accept as their next senator

Although it is too late to change the law before the 2026 election, the appointment process for a U.S. senator needs to be fundamentally reformed. The United States Constitution requires every member of the U.S. House of Representatives to be elected by the people, no one is appointed to the House. Colorado should make that same requirement apply to senators.

If Bennet actually respected Colorado voters, he would say he would immediately resign from the Senate if elected governor so that term-limited, outgoing Gov. Jared Polis could make the appointment. This would also allow the new senator to get their office up and running before the new Congress meets in January 2027.

Or maybe Polis does not want to appoint a new senator. Maybe Polis and Bennet have already cut a secret deal for Bennet to appoint Polis to the Senate. Does anyone really believe that Polis wants to walk away from public life and quietly return to his Boulder home to help First Gentleman Marlon Reis and his agenda to undercut Colorado agriculture and rural communities?

If Bennet is the Democratic nominee in November, Colorado’s 4 million voters might be voting not only for a new governor but potentially a new senator as well. They deserve to know who this mysterious person is before the election.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who managed campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens.  He was campaign manager for U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota in 2004 when Thune unseated Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.